Actively exploited in the wild. This CVE is on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list — treat remediation as urgent. Federal remediation due by 24 Mar 2022.
iOSOperating system · Cisco

CVE-2017-12232

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2017-09-29
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 15.6 or later.
See remediation →
99/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
In the wild No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
A vulnerability in the implementation of a protocol in Cisco Integrated Services Routers Generation 2 (ISR G2) Routers running Cisco IOS 15.0 through 15.6 could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause an affected device to reload, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to a misclassification of Ethernet frames. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted Ethernet frame to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the affected device to reload, resulting in a DoS condition. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvc03809.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

A vulnerability in Cisco ISR G2 routers running IOS 15.0-15.6 allows an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause device reload by sending a crafted Ethernet frame. The issue stems from misclassification of Ethernet frames in protocol implementation, causing a denial of service condition.

MitigationApply the Cisco patch for bug CSCvc03809 or upgrade to a supported IOS version; implement network access controls to limit exposure to adjacent attackers until patched.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
iOSOperating system
Affected:>= 15.0, <= 15.6

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Adjacent
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify hardware platform
    Execute 'show version' or 'show hardware' and look for 'ISR G2' or 'Integrated Services Router Generation 2' in the output
    Affected if Device is a Cisco ISR G2 router (the vulnerability only affects this platform)
  2. Check iOS version
    Execute 'show version' and locate the 'IOS Software' or 'Version' line. Note the major release number (e.g., 15.0, 15.1, 15.5, 15.6)
    Affected if iOS version falls within the range 15.0 through 15.6 inclusive
  3. Verify network accessibility
    Review the device's interface configurations with 'show ip interface brief' and check if any interface is in an exposed network segment accessible to adjacent attackers
    Affected if Device has layer-2 adjacency exposure to untrusted network segments (the attack requires adjacent network access)

Device is affected if it is a Cisco ISR G2 router running iOS versions 15.0-15.6 and is reachable by adjacent attackers on the same network segment.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 15.6
Interim mitigation

Apply the Cisco patch for bug CSCvc03809 or upgrade to a supported IOS version; implement network access controls to limit exposure to adjacent attackers until patched.

Fix this in iOS Exploited in the wild — priority engagement
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,750
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Scan for this in your stack

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dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-12232 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2017-12232 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data